Zimbabweans are severely malnourished, and deaths from starvation occur even in the cities. The country has not yet suffered nationwide famine only because international donors have stepped in.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The economic and social decline of Zimbabwe is shocking and appalling. Life there is unrecognisable from that of the recent past. Each day is a struggle for basic survival.
Well, no one gives aid to Zimbabwe through the Mugabe government.
I don't think we will ever go the way of Zimbabwe, but people are concerned.
People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future: they are happening in Africa now. You can see it perfectly clearly. Periodic famines are due to too many people living on land that can't sustain them.
Many people in the world today are not starving because there is an inherent inability to produce food, they are starving because they are caught in the middle of political fights and blockades that have been used as weapons.
I worry about Zimbabweans. They bend, they bend, they bend, they bend - where do the people break? How long can they go on scrounging for food in garbage dumps and using the moisture from sewage drains to plant vegetables?
The notion that aid can alleviate systemic poverty, and has done so, is a myth. Millions in Africa are poorer today because of aid; misery and poverty have not ended but increased. Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world.
The painful truth may be that Zimbabwe, the youngest of Africa's former colonies, has simply followed where the continent has led, treading the well-worn path beaten out of the lie that taking power from the colonialists and delivering democracy to the people are one and the same.
Africa needs more funding to continue to fight all of those diseases. We are losing more than 1.3 million young children under the age of five every year because of malaria. We've already lost 25 million people to the pandemic of HIV-AIDS. More people are dying now from typhoid fever. Diabetes is on the rise.
The economic dynamic in Zimbabwe is perversely robust: while ordinary people suffer, black-market dealers and people with foreign bank accounts prosper, making them powerful stakeholders in the perpetuation of devastating economic policies.
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